Miss Deringham rose languidly, but her father felt he had gone as far
as was desirable, and went back to grapple with a financial difficulty
from which he could see only one escape, while she rode away with
Seaforth, who led out the horse reserved for her use. Alice Deringham
could ride, but when they left the clearing and plunged into the bush
she found that all she had been taught in England was not much use in
British Columbia. There was no perceptible trail, and the horses
floundered round great fallen trees, and plunged smashing through
thickets of black raspberry and barberry. In places their flanks were
brushed by tall, black-stemmed fern, and where the forest was more open
treacherous gravel slipped beneath the hoofs that sank from sight
amidst the blood-red clusters of the little wineberry. After an hour
of it the girl was shaken and breathless, and she contemplated her
habit somewhat ruefully when Seaforth drew bridle. Somewhere far up on
a hill shoulder there was a smashing in the bush.

"Are you sure you have not lost the way?" she said. "It seems
impossible for horses or cattle to get through this forest."

Seaforth laughed. "The bush is really thin here," he said. "Anybody
used to it could get through at a gallop, while a good bushman could
scarcely make five miles a day walking where it's tolerably thick. I
wonder if you know that the ox was originally a denizen of the bush. I
didn't until Harry told me. It always seemed to me a tranquil beast
adapted for sober locomotion on nice green grass."

"And isn't it?" said the girl with indifference in her eyes. "Mr.
Alton is an authority on cattle?"

"Harry," said Seaforth, smiling, "is, although one might not always